Stand against human trafficking

Friday

Mar 21, 2014 at 12:01 AM

The kidnapping of a child doesn't always start with someone grabbing that child from the street or a playground. For a 12-year-old runaway girl the simple offer of a ride to an unknown destination was enough for her to surrender her freedom and become a commodity to one, and then to many.

Carissa Phelps

The kidnapping of a child doesn't always start with someone grabbing that child from the street or a playground. For a 12-year-old runaway girl the simple offer of a ride to an unknown destination was enough for her to surrender her freedom and become a commodity to one, and then to many.

This story, my story, would be part of my past, if it were not repeating itself over and over, minute by minute. I tell my story because I am not a statistic; I am human. Victims of sex trafficking are human, too. They laugh, cry, breath and dream, just like we all do.

I was 12 years old and jumped into a man's car. He offered me a hot dog and soda in exchange for "taking care of him." Unable to escape through the bathroom window of the old motel room he had rented, I was kidnapped, but no one was looking for me. I was forced, and upon his departure and vows to return, I managed my escape only to find myself soon manipulated by a battered woman and the pimp trafficker who had assaulted her.

Having been sold for sex, raped and traded for crack cocaine, I eventually found my way out. On my journey through graduate school, more than 15 years later, I thought I had buried this story. But instead I found myself compelled to speak, to share, and to inspire others to do the same. I wrote Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets to share my story because there is no such thing as a "child prostitute." What I was and what I am today is a survivor of kidnapping, sexual assault, child endangerment, and commercial sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking is a deplorable crime against individuals, against children, and against society. Yet buyers and sellers continue to benefit, and good people turn a blind eye to how sex trafficking actually happens in their own community. Like any other scammer or criminal, traffickers want us to believe the false story - that someone we ignore as a victim must have been at fault, or at least made a choice to run away, be on their own, or accept a ride to an unknown destination. The real story is one in three runaways will be lured toward sexual exploitation within 48 hours of leaving home.

Today, many more women and men, stand alongside each other as survivors of human trafficking. Once painful, forgotten or buried experiences now take on a purpose. The reach of our stories of suffering, survival, and against-all-odds success goes far beyond any lie told by traffickers. We proudly show them there is a way out and when they are free, they join us with a new purpose and destiny to be lived.

Statewide, survivors are joined in this effort by the California Office of Emergency Services, which has committed more than $5 million through nine human trafficking task forces. In addition, California's network of regional fusion centers, including the State Threat Assessment Center, through many channels including survivors' experiences, works to better understand the evolving threat, the criminals, their techniques, tactics and procedures and shares this information across the state.

Only through collaborative efforts and partnerships with law enforcement, victim service providers, survivors, non-government organizations and academic institutions can we bring light to this dark and hidden crime, take a stand by raising public awareness, and make community members aware of what is happening in their own backyards.

If you have been a victim of human trafficking, or know someone who has, contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline, 1-888-373-7888 or text Be Free (233733). This line is open all day, every day of the year. Through the hotline, more than 75,000 calls have come in to identify nearly 9,000 survivors.

Each of the 9,000 survivors has a story. Do you know enough to recognize it? Stockton and San Joaquin County have more than their share of human trafficking and must continue to actively work together as a cohesive community to combat and end modern-day slavery.

After graduating from UCLA with a joint MBA and law degree, Phelps authored Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets. In 2012, she founded Runaway Girl to create employment opportunities and organize survivors of all forms of human trafficking around resources, networks, businesses and local efforts to protect and care for survivors and victims within their own communities.

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